Counting Sheep
by Spikesgirl58
Summary: Napoleon and Illya watch each other sleep.


I love watching my partner when he sleeps. I'm not a sound sleeper; never have been according to my mother and she should know. When I was a child, it was always a struggle to get me to go to bed. There just seemed so much of life out there, so many things to do and to see. As an adult, I discovered there were many other very pleasant things to do in bed without necessarily sleeping. That was a good thing as well for a lengthy bout of good sex was just the night cap I needed some nights.

When I joined UNCLE, we were trained as agents how best to coax our bodies to sleep and how to keep them awake. Frequently, we had to go days without sleep - not a problem for me as much as it was for others. But no amount of relaxation techniques, no tricks, no thinly veiled threats worked on my body. It slept only when it wanted to – an inconvenience at best.

My partner, on the other hand, sleeps at the drop of a pin. I've always envied him his ability to do that. I've seen him sleep standing up, leaning against a wall for support, lying in a ditch of ice-cold water and even in the middle of a siege. Give him five minutes and he's out for the count. They should bottle him and sell him as a sleep aid.

At night, after the last evil THRUSH has been sent to meet their very appropriate maker, and the reports are done, and the last joke has been made, usually at my partner's expense, we go to bed and sleep. Well, he sleeps and I watch him. His face changes slightly as he slips off, becoming even more youthful as he does. Hell, some days, he still looks like a wet-behind-the-ears teen, and then he scowls and ages a decade. He's so serous at times that I tease him and tell him his face will freeze like that. On a good day, he smiles. On bad days, he won't hear me. But asleep, he's at peace and it shows.

There's so much about him no one knows, not even me. He's private, almost to the point of being reclusive when we're not on an assignment. But these days, we always seem to be on assignment, running here or there, putting out fires, saving the world one more time, only to end up back here, in a nameless hotel room, trying to catch our breath before heading out again. He sleeps and I watch.

Just between you and me, there are times when I think if I could just crawl in beside him and wrap my arms around him, or better yet, have him wrap his arms around me, I just might be able to sleep. To feel the rise and fall of his chest against me, his body against mine, perhaps his sense of calm would persuade my body to do the one thing I can't – stop running and start living.

Sometimes, when he's sleeping, I wish I could reach out and touch his hair, gently, softly, so that he doesn't wake. Maybe I'd even kiss it, smelling the scent that belongs to only him. He's so accustomed to me, I bet he wouldn't wake up if I did. He'd just murmur and sigh. And I wish I had the courage to tell him awake what I can't even tell him asleep. That I love him, that I want him, that I need him.

God, I wish I could touch him…

*****

He's always watching me. Even when he doesn't think I know, I can feel him, sense him. Sometimes I wake up and he's just staring, as if transfixed by me. I don't know why.

He doesn't sleep well and often resorts to alternative means of sleep aids, such as alcohol or even pills when it gets truly bad. On the other hand, I sleep at the drop of a hat. It's an avoidance technique I developed early in life. It was easier to hide from the constant gnaw of hunger asleep. If you were asleep, your parents were reluctant to wake you, especially when you have the reputation of being always being hungry and the food supply unreliable.

I remember sleeping with my brothers and sisters, each of us pressed against the other until we were a big ball of entwined arms and legs. The security and peace that memory provides can trigger warm feelings now in me even at the worst of times. And I wish I could share it with him.

It's also easier to deal with other types of hunger asleep. They tell you to love your fellow man, but that in no way means you can make love to your fellow man. No, Society as a whole frowns on that sort of 'connection.' If I'm asleep, I can avoid the temptation, even though I know he watches and studies me for some reason known only to him. And he hasn't a clue how I feel about him.

I've asked him before why he does it. He laughed and said it was envy. He asked for my secret, but I shrugged his request away. There are some things I don't share, I will never share. Not out of shame, but out of a sense of pride. There were circumstances that forged me, made me the man I am. They weren't always pleasant, but they are mine and mine alone. By hoarding them, I gain a sense of security, knowing that part of me will forever be just mine – never shared, never stolen, always safe.

There are times I would like to just hold him and try to calm his fears. To let him know he's not alone and I will always be at his side. I cannot be his lover; Society and the world will not permit it, but I can be his friend, his confidant and his colleague. That is the best offered me.

I wish I could bring him peace and the calm he deserves so that he could sleep just for a little while. So many nights, I half wake as he stumbles in, after spending much of the night in the arms of a woman, only to listen to him toss and turn in his bed. Even after exhaustive training at the hands of UNCLE's finest, sleep eludes him, but I know in my arms, he'd find it.

Sometimes, I can almost feel him beside me, caressing me with his hands instead of his eyes. How I would revel at that sensation and knowing that he feels for me as I feel for him. But wishing does not reality make. It will never make it happen, for it can't be. Happy endings are for fairy tales, not me.

God, I wish he'd touch me.


End file.
